


I Sekai Death Parade | Attack on Titan AU

by xSukunas_Toy_Gojos_Bitchx



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Betrayal, Beyond the Walls, Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, F/M, Fear, Fear of Death, Flashbacks, Government Conspiracy, Government Experimentation, Inspired by Alternity: A Harry Potter Alternate Universe, M/M, Multi, New Special Operations Squad | New Squad Levi, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Original Special Operations Squad | Squad Levi, Post-Betrayal, Prophetic Dreams, Shame, Shapeshifting, Slavery, Titans, Training Camp, Wall Maria (Shingeki no Kyojin), Wall Rose (Shingeki no Kyojin), Wall Sina (Shingeki no Kyojin)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29079579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xSukunas_Toy_Gojos_Bitchx/pseuds/xSukunas_Toy_Gojos_Bitchx
Summary: Having no other memories except images of her own death in a strange place, Lain awakes to find herself in a little cottage on a small farm somewhere in the country. With no point of reference, no feeling towards her current disassociation, and no sense of self she begins to live a life of peace and quiet inside the confines of her grass fed paradise.Then one day a scouting legion of the Survey Corp passes by the house on their way back to the capital. Offering her assistance by handing out food and water Lain's mother invited them to stay the night and rest before heading back home.  With stories about the world beyond, adventure, and a sense of belonging Lain feels drawn to follow them as if her answers lie in the shadows between her reality and theirs.So when morning came she rose and got ready only to find empty fields, a silent barn and none of the Corp in sight; their presence as fleeting and as ephemeral as any memory of her own truth when she steps beyond the threshold of her front door.Refusing to accept it was a figment of her imagination, she hastily prepared supplies and readies a horse before setting out for the world her mind repeatedly denies ever knowing.
Relationships: Erwin Smith & Original Female Character(s), Erwin Smith/Original Female Character(s), Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Original Female Character(s), Levi/Original Female Character





	1. Don’t Tread On Me

**Author's Note:**

> This story will roughly follow the timeline of the series. Liberties of course will be taken and NO TRIGGER WARNINGS WILL BE GIVEN. Expect, information to be representational and not necessarily accurate. Expect also to be offended at least at the beginning but try to remain objective and see it as context not anything worth attacking anyone over. Yes there are sensitive subjects and yes you are entitled to your feelings about it but you should never attack someone for not agreeing with you or seeing things differently. We all are entitled to an opinion but we aren't required to like said opinion. It should also be noted I AM NOT CONVENTIONALLY RELIGIOUS IN THE SLIGHTEST. Religious references I make are objective and thought provoking. I don't preach to people and allow you to believe what you want. 
> 
> This story will be told in first person from the perspective of the girl known as Lain. It is possible you will see themes and concepts or even sections of chapters in here that mirror a work I did previously. That was done on purpose as I consider this work the rewrite I always wanted to do but never did because I could never get the right plot. 
> 
> I also want to put a lot of thought into this story so updates will most likely be sporadic and infrequent/irregular. 
> 
> ❤️ always,  
> J/R

Don't tread on me

I said, don't tread on me

Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail

Once you provoke her, rattling of her tail

Never begins it, never, but once engaged

Never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage

I said don't tread on me

So be it

Threaten no more

To secure peace is to prepare for war

So be it

Settle the score

Touch me again for the words that you'll hear evermore

Don't tread on me

Love it or leave it, she with the deadly bite

Quick is the blue tongue, forked as lighting strike

Shining with brightness, always on surveillance

The eyes, they never close, emblem of vigilance

Oh no, no, no don't tread on me

Don't Tread on Me

Song by Metallica

_________

*Keeping in mind I was not there and am using the ideas and images for reference that have been publicly provided, there won't be much detail to this scene. It is meant more for context then as a stage setter as the bulk of the story is focused on the SNK timeline and the interjection of the OC*

To go from darkness to light in what felt like an instant was always disturbing. There was never any gentle or slow wakefulness from sleep now as 2020 had come to a close. Having lived through events I never anticipated to historically repeat, the main being a world wide pandemic, only to start the year with warnings of a coup had me on edge. Even being an hour outside of the district, I had parents still alive and working who could easily have gotten wrapped up in something like that had the pandemic not kept them home from government jobs leaving the idea in my mind that death could both give and take in unexpectedly brutal ways.

Even so, I had always fought for my own voice and the sounds of reason in an attempt to bring objectivity to the world. So as I sat at my kitchen table with my coffee watching the news as warnings of the presidents inability the ceed peacefully ran on repeat, I made a reckless decision.

I hated politics. I hated the poison that permeated government and had taken it past the "righteous" foundation it stood upon when the constitution was scribed and America attempted to establish democracy with the right of man over the rule of one.

Did I believe the concept of democracy was the best? I believed in the potential of all things to exist within the nature it was ascribed good or evil. I believed elements of many things should be combined to do what was best for the nation allowing people to be treated fairly and the system of checks and balances that ran it to always act in the best nature of that nation so it supported it in crisis and held it accountable when necessary.

I believed no one person should ever rule absolutely or have reign to do with the nations founding principles what benefited them while sacrificing the masses who didn't have the power to have a voice themselves.

So as I watched and the news grew darker, the pandemic death tolls rose, and the people suffered, I decided that if there was a coup I would stand against it even as a mob of one in whatever way I could to try to bring some objectivity to this rampant bull of political genocide that threatened to crush the very foothold of my existence.

How naïve and foolish I was. I was one and they were many, but they weren't the majority. Just a rabid group of zealots out to prove a point yet still I felt the need to inject myself much like they had because I too was being trampled on.

So I began scouring social media of all kinds searching for pods and pockets of info that might tell when the move would be made by the President's supporters. I even created profiles where necessary and attempted to blend in so I could get the latest updates and stay abreast.

When the day finally came that locations, days, and times had been set I took off from work and made my way down to the Capital, parking in a garage opposite the mob and circling around the back so I could lie in wait and find the best opportunity for me to try to thwart what plans I could or at least hold who I could accountable by taking pictures and getting names of anyone who would trustingly give them.

Armed with only my MAGA disguise and my iPhone11. I was running purely on adrenaline and poorly thought out ideas wanting only to do what I could while never anticipating the level of chaos that would ensue.

It didn't take long once there for the chaos to break out. With no military and few police in sight, the mob overwhelmed the Capital steps and scaled the walls breaking any and all windows in an attempt to enter and hold the Congress hostage until the previously announced Presidential nomination was overturned.

Even as out of the way as I was, I found myself scooped up into a pat that was roaming the backside looking for entry. Armed with zip ties and what looked like makeshift weapons, I soon realized it was safer to blend in then it was to try to fade out.

Once ushered inside, surrounded by loud tyrannical chants I did my best to fall to the back so I could look for an escape route now realizing my attendance would jeopardize my own safety as things turned far more aggressive than I had been lead to believe. With some police seemingly in compliance with the invasion, I found it hard to work my way around to areas not blocked by barricades or corruption.

Eventually I found myself entering a hallway from the side where a mob was descending on a barricaded door. The mob was clearly hostile and was brandishing flags and broken pieces of wood that they had pointed at the door as if intending to break in.

Still scared out of my mind but somehow rationalizing that the support from the mass behind the door would be enough to deter the mob, I ran towards the door and inserted myself between it and them arriving at the same time someone on the other side of the door broke through the glass with a gun.

Unable to react fast enough to protect myself and too insignificant to stop the press of bodies with just my presence, I felt myself get crushed against the door and into the gun as the mob pressed forward trying to break open the door.

It all happened in an instant and somehow no pain registered for as the wind got knocked out of me from the front as the door pressed against its hinges in reverse, the gun was jerked back enough that the person holding lost their grip enough and it fired sending a bullet right through the back of my chest and into my heart.

That's when everything went black.

———————

To go from darkness to light in what felt like an instant was always disturbing. When I finally gained awareness I was in an endless wasteland lit only by what looked like lay-lines in the sky that all converged on a pillar of light. As I tried to look into the pillar all I could perceive was a faint outline of a woman as a solemn adolescent female voice spoke.

"I see your path has crossed with ours. Do you wish to be reborn again or shall you vanish into history on the flames of someone else's desire?"

Drawn by the lights but unable to move closer due to my lack of a tangible body, I was unable to reply.

"My apologies, let me remedy your situation."

Unsure how without corporeal shape, I see the young girl separate herself from the light as she comes to stand before me and reach her hand to brush against what can only be called my consciousness.

"I see. Very well."

For an unknown span of moments, the girl sits on the ground and builds within the sand a figure that when I gaze upon it I am impressed with a sense of familiarity. The figure is female with short hair, ample female assets, average body with reasonable muscle tone and in what can only be guessed as the middle years of her life.

When the body is finished the girl looks towards me.

"This is your body. If you would like to be reborn all you must do is will this body to you and accept its embrace. Once inside I will take you into the light and you will be born anew."

Letting my consciousness slide towards the now fully crafted body, I feel a sudden pull to reside within it. As that will increases I sense that I am moving closer to it though I have no sense of distance or dimension.

There is a brief moment of darkness again before eyes open and everything comes into colorful focus. What had once been in shades of grey now carries a neutral spectrum of golds, whites, browns and peaches.

With the help of the girl, I stand and wobble before gaining my footing. When she sees I am stable she tucks her hand under my arm and begins walking me toward the light. I am not sure how long it takes nor do we speak. All I know is eventually I have to shield my eyes and let her guide me before the world once again goes black.


	2. Pending Deliverance

"Evil comes from the abuse of free will ."

\- CS Lewis

——————————

The juxtaposition of a world filled with fear and a world without it is separated by a fine line that divides consciousness and compartmentalization. Those who are conscious of fear live with the realization that at any moment they can be overcome by it, altered by it, possessed by it. They acknowledge that they may not overcome it and seek to recognize it and its numerous faces hoping that by distinguishing it they can limit its power over them and be able to circumvent its impact on their life.

Those who compartmentalize fear never learn from it or truly experience its gruesome depths only leave it to fester dormant in the soul until it rears its head and eats them alive. They struggle daily to prevent it from being triggered and limit their contact with those that might awaken it hoping, by forgetting about it entirely, that they can move past it and let it stay in a dormant state; out of sight out of mind.

In a world that embraces fear, life races forward on broken wings barreling towards oblivion where any shift could snuff a life without any remorse while still setting to blaze another as a level of injustice is reached. The two events could be related or just happening in parallel but for a world-embracing fear, no life exists or is extinguished in a vacuum. They are all tied to human nature; one that is unbridled and driven by choice rather than fate.

The world that compartmentalizes exercises order with a dictatorial ferocity wishing to repress fear with structured security often based around religion or some other organized belief that removes individual accountability and holds actions and a moral compass as the guiding lights to salvation; a release only offered to the pious and righteous that does not rock the boat or find the chink in the armor that shields society from reality. 

Thus compartmentalizers create a false paradise while embracers are seen to exist in a living hell; both searching for a perfect existence while confronting the demons that exist within life's foundation.

It is impossible to say one is right while one is wrong. It is more accurate to say that the methods exercised by both should be judged within the confines of their effects on the ideal society. No man should be repressed or injured with the intent to monopolize absolute power by any other man or group. Should repression occur that society should be subjected to change and the people stand up to fight for their right to be governed as they see fit and as the nation has set forth keeping bias as obsolete as possible.

For many, that stance can never be taken, their voice never heard for they are trampled under lofty ambitions and spoon fed lies forcing man to either face a fear much larger than himself to prevent his very existence from being swallowed by conformity or be dissolved and repossessed by the very thing he wishes to fight against but is overwhelmed by. 

Even those locked behind a wall meant to hold out the giants that threaten to overtake freedom and man's right to decide for himself find themselves easily overwhelmed preferring to place the responsibility on those who hold life and freedom more recklessly than they.

"Why should I give up my comforts and security to fight something the wall can easily deter? Let the government do what we pay them to do. It lets us shift the blame to them when things fall apart and prevents us from owning our right to self-preserve; a burden much too heavy for such little return on investment." They say behind their oaken doors while sitting with their families in their warm and secure homes feeling safe and detached.

But for every word spoken as a bedtime lullaby to sleeping children as they close their eyes, for every lie of infinite love that leaves a lovers lips, the fear creeps closer and closer until its shadow slinks between the cracks in the wall and slits in the door to strangle a soul at night as the eye of a nightmare no one can run from.

Deliverance.

————————

The ethereal darkness rumbled with muted thunder and the frantic cries of horses as rain-soaked earth failed to mask the footfalls of a cavalcade of horses as they galloped in formation through a rainy, eerily lit forest. With no immediate enemy in sight, only the intense pounding as the animals' resolve tore through the flesh of the earth and the urgent indiscernible shouts of the men that rode them suggested the scene that was unfolding held any hostility to it.

Within moments a stern man with blonde hair slicked back by the rain called out and the scene transcended the darkness into light as the dense forest gave way to broken rain clouds and a full moon with a towering human-shaped giant whose belly distended like a vision of greed stood out in a less densely populated area to the left backdropped by the shadowed forest the contingent had just broken from.

The man at the front signaled and the rest behind broke off in a V-shape as shorter orders were shouted and teams were established.Within seconds the rest of the figures on horseback were extracting strange hand-held pommels before pressing buttons and being repelled hundreds of feet into the sky as the horses left behind melted back into the woods.

Over and over the men shot grappling lines into trees going higher and farther as their bodies repelled towards the giant before them from two flanks as the repeated sound of slick wires sliding through retractable gears echoed through the night like swarms of mechanical guillotines barreling down on prey. 

Within moments the small swarm a men surrounded the towering giant as long shimmers of thick steel caught the light reflecting man's ill intent as he went in for the kill. One man. Two blades. The sound of whirling knives and slick wire. A giant's neck is exposed with no attempt to defend or protect itself. The man screamed with a face contorted in anger, self-loathing, hate, and despair as his spin attack brought him down like a chainsaw to severe reality in the blink of an eye...

That's where it ended. That's where it always ended. Ever since waking up a year ago that dream had reoccurred every full moon starting and stopping at the same spot each time without a detail out of place.

At first, it seemed to be just one intangible part in the unexplainable nightmare that had become Lain's life, but as night followed day and seasons began to come full circle she realized there was nothing about her life she could call normal. Course what was normal when the only thing you remembered with any fiber of certainty was the scene of her death in a place she couldn't recall.

How did she know it was her death if she didn't recognize anything? In truth, she didn't but something inside her resonated every time she had the dream. She could smell the smog-filled air mixed with freshly polished wax as voices echoed across marble walls and voices chanted 'Down with the government'; flags and clothing in red white and blue swarming her vision as bodies pressed like cattle herded to slaughter down vacant hallways towards the internal workings of a building she could almost name. These images were only clear right after these more frequent nightmares occurred; quickly fading as her nostrils breathed in deeply the smell of her freshly stuffed straw mattress and starched linen pillowcase.

Some nights she would squeeze her eyes shut and try not to breathe desperately raking the half-dream half nightmare with frantic eyes trying to pick up any detail that might explain her familiarity but eventually, she would have to breathe and her chance once again was ripped away leaving it all a fleeting afterthought as she rose to meet the mundane grass-fed life of a farmers daughter.

Today was no exception but as she rose groggily from her full moon-induced nightmare she noticed something was indeed off. Raking her tongue across her bottom lip she swirled the tip of her tongue around before jumping up and running to the mirror where she glanced at herself in n horror.

Blood. Her entire face was covered in streaks of blood. Without thinking she screamed and then clamped her hand over her mouth not wanting to alarm her mother who was the only one home at this time since her father went out to make his rounds of the live stock come first light.

Within moments, however, her mother had thrown open the door causing her to turn and look at the women's terrified face and the world stopped.

"Lain?"

Her mother's voice was concerned but not terrified like Lain's had just been.

"Lain what's the matter?"

Confused, Lain turned back to the mirror and frowned dropping her hands to her side. Her face looked back as pristine and normal as it had been the day before.

"It's nothing. Sorry, mother. I thought I saw something move and it looked larger than a rat. Guess it was just a trick of the eye. I didn't sleep well so I guess I'm seeing things."

Sighing, setting her lips in a firm line, Lain's mother walked over to her daughter and placed her hands on her biceps before running then gently up and down in a reassuring manner.

"It was a full moon, wasn't it? I take it you had that nightmare again?"

Lain nodded. "Same one. Not a detail out of place."

"I still think somehow you are picking up on the stories those men from the scouting legion told that night they brought you back from the forest unconscious. They said you had hit your head when your horse threw you after coming upon a Titan that was injured and tried to chase you. We thank the Lord every day that they found you when they did. I still have no idea how you got as far as you did but I thank the lord you came back to us in one piece. You were gone almost two whole weeks and we were beginning to think you would never make it back to us."

Her mother kissed the crown of her head then and Lain smiled, but it was empty hallow. There was nothing in her heart that told her that story had a ring of truth to it but the woman who called herself her mother seemed to think it was God's truth and Lain had no way to refute the story. All she remembered was waking up here after the nightmare from a place she felt more in tune with feeling disoriented and suffering from a raging headache. The doctor said she had a concussion and it had taken a month before Lain felt human again and was able to take in light housework.

Now, as she stood facing the mirror with the streaks of blood still fresh in her mind painting her face with the reality of a murder she didn't commit, she felt more than ever that everything was a lie. The question was how was she ever going to prove it in the middle of the country on a farm without a viable reason to leave and at least ten thousand immediate needs that needed to get done before she fell back asleep and into this circle of cloaked madness called life?


	3. Temporal Shift

"Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it."

\--Judy Blume

——--//———

We are fearless, every one of us. Even in our darkest moments when we fight against an enemy only, we can see, we do not die when all seems to be lost. Instead, we allow ourselves to be beaten and torn apart until we either rise in opposition or fade into the distance. Though our bodies shake and our minds break, we are immobile in our position. For facing fear isn't about giving ground or gaining the upper hand it is about just being. Being the one to field the blame despite our bodies quaking in terror; the shield against tyranny. Being the one to absorb the hate for those who cannot face their fears. Being the bastion of hope for even ourselves as we question our existence and emotional fortitude. Fear is the road less traveled and the one that always paves the way to the darkest hells and the brightest futures.

Even when we run and do not take a stand, our nature remains fearless. To run and live means we have chosen a path of least resistance, not just one that is the safest, for nothing in this world is safe. For us to cower and cave means we have succumbed to death and the emptiness it allows us. That isn't a weakness, that is just the absence of the fear that drives us to change, the absence of an empowered self. To no longer fear means you no longer can be and define us all. It is how we gain breath, it is how we take life in all its forms, and it is how we make a stand with each step we take.

It is only when there is a complete absence of fear when fear doesn't even register that life comes into question for how can one fight for or against something when they have no feeling towards or against it? Such is the case with Lain Berdot, a young woman whose name sticks like molasses in her mouth every time it's uttered as if the very sound of it was wrong.

In the year 2021 the President of the United States was in the process of transferring his power to the newest candidate when a coup broke out several weeks before the inauguration was supposed to take place.

Events quickly unfolded causing a young woman in her late thirties to decide to stand against the wave of tyranny and infiltrate the Presidential supporters using fake credentials and a disguise in hopes of foiling or at least throwing a wrench in their plans letting the world know that not everyone agreed to a new democracy under a different leader would be a sham. In the process, she took a stray bullet trying to stop a mob, and ended up dying. 

At the same time those events unfold it is the year is 845 in Paradis and a woman around the same age is killed in captivity after being brutally beaten by her master having been sold into captivity after her family had tried to rid themselves of the liability of a fertile daughter past marriageable age.

Her body was unceremoniously dumped in the woods far from their base for the scavengers to eat but was found by a passing scouting unit who had been hunting the slave traders for months as they believed the traders were feeding their captives to the Titans as a way to incite the creatures to decimate local towns so the traders could pilfer the remains and profit from the dead.

Having checked for a pulse and finding a faint one, the unit had nursed her back to health and a scouting party had taken her from village to cottage until they had reunited her with her family on their way back to the walled city. 

To say the family was shocked and unsettled was an understatement when they were provided once again with the daughter they had riddled themselves with, but when the mother took a close look she noticed something was off. The girl's eyes were the color of the clearest blue topaz not brown like their daughters had been. Her hair was alsohazelnut with red lowlights where their daughters had been chestnut colored. The girl before them also seemed to stand a head taller and carried herself with confidence their mousy little wretch had not. Fearing the girl had had something done to her and would kill them in their sleep they said nothing of what had transpired pretending to accept her with loving arms; their eyes weeping tears of joy at their union filling the survey units heads with lie after lie until they left and the girl was settled in.

For the next year they all lived a lie carefully crafted around the nightmares the girl seemed to have over an event she couldn't explain but marked the full stage of the moon the night before she appeared on their doorstep leaving everyone to believe the events were linked unexplainably.

Though the plan had still been to be rid of the girl as soon as an opportunity presented itself, she turned out to be far less of a burden than before leading the parents to believe her time in captivity, which she didn't seem to remember, had done her some good making her harder and more efficient as a body of labor. Feeling no need to rush and be rid of her, the parents continued to play along.

At the same time, both girls died the nightmare that plagued the girl named Lain every full moon after playing out in real-time. Keith Shadis's men engaged a Titan in the forest during a storm causing all but twenty to be put to death in an attempt to secure the first human base outside of the walls. They had arrived home to skepticism and hatred as bedraggled men and broken hearts littered the road to the capital. 

Only one soul would know at this moment the truth of how all these lives came together. Trapped in the very center of time as if flowed through reality the woman known as Ymir would sense through the Coordinate this convergence of souls through time and would supplant the surviving soul of the girl in the hospital in 2021 into the re-sculpted body of the dead girl in the forest; bringing her to life only moments before she was found by the Corp and revived to begin her journey again with a clean slate, or so she believed since her memories should have been wiped clean and all knowledge of her precious life erased.

And so the death parade was staged to begin as the world of the living fought for a future not of its making at the same time Lain attempted to regain her past while establishing her present in a future she didn't belong to.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to see more by me? Come visit https://creativefandoms.com/


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